How London-Based Nigerian Mother Was Killed by Mentally Ill Son

A heartbreaking tragedy involving a Nigerian-heritage family in the United Kingdom has exposed troubling gaps in the way mental health services and law enforcement respond to warnings from families living with severe psychiatric illness.

A coroner has ruled that serious failures by two National Health Service (NHS) trusts, compounded by poor communication with the Metropolitan Police, contributed to the death of 64-year-old Caroline Adeyelu, who was stabbed to death by her son in their home in Dagenham, East London.

Caroline died on October 30, 2022, after attempting to protect her daughter from a violent attack by her son, 28-year-old Nicolas Aina, who had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

The Night the Family’s Fear Became Reality
Evidence presented during an inquest revealed that the fatal attack unfolded shortly after 9 p.m. inside the family home.

Nicolas reportedly entered his sister’s room shouting repeatedly: “I’m going to kill you. You’re a witch.”

He then attacked her with a knife, stabbing her several times in the chest, arm, wrist and thigh.

Hearing her daughter screaming for help, Caroline rushed into the room and tried to pull her son away. In the struggle that followed, Nicolas turned the knife on his mother.

She was stabbed in the chest and died at the scene.

Her daughter survived the attack.

Warnings That Went Unheeded
The inquest heard that Caroline had previously raised concerns with mental health professionals about her son’s behaviour and the fear she felt living with him.
At the time, Nicolas had reportedly stopped taking his prescribed medication, partly because he wanted to lose weight.

Despite the warning signs, the coroner found that no safeguarding referral was made and no risk or safety plan was created to protect the family.

Instead, Caroline was advised that she could consider evicting her son from the family home.

Coroner Nadia Persaud ruled that the response from the North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT) and East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) amounted to serious failures that contributed to the fatal outcome.

“Concerns raised were not explored or escalated,” the coroner said. “A number of options were available to assist in keeping Caroline safe, but these were not taken.”

Threats Known Before the Killing
The inquest also revealed that one of the NHS trusts had previously been aware that Nicolas had made threats to kill someone in 2021.

However, that information was not passed on to the Metropolitan Police.
Caroline herself had reportedly received threatening messages from her son but had been reluctant to involve the police. The coroner said the responsibility for reporting the threats should not have been left solely to the victim.

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Communication Breakdown Between Agencies
Witnesses at the inquest raised concerns about the lack of an effective system for sharing urgent information between mental health services and law enforcement when individuals with serious mental illness present a risk of violence.

Persaud recommended that both NHS mental health teams and the Metropolitan Police develop a system for direct operational liaison in cases where mental illness is linked with potential violent behaviour.

A Wider Safeguarding Concern
The coroner also pointed to findings from the Femicide Census, which show that in cases where women are killed by immediate family members, more than 80 percent are mothers killed by their sons.

Mental illness is recorded as a factor in about 58 percent of those cases.

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Persaud said the pattern suggests that violence by adult children against parents remains insufficiently recognised within safeguarding training and policies.

Lessons From a Preventable Tragedy
Although the NHS trusts and the Metropolitan Police have acknowledged the circumstances surrounding Caroline Adeyelu’s death and expressed willingness to learn from the case, the inquest concluded that stronger action earlier might have changed the outcome.

For Caroline, the tragedy ended in the most devastating way possible – a mother losing her life while trying to save her daughter.

Her death now stands as a painful reminder of the consequences when warnings about mental health risks fail to trigger decisive intervention.